Mary E. Wagner 83, of Allentown, passed away Sunday February 26, 2006 in the Phoebe Home, Allentown. She was born in Topton, a daughter of the late Carl F. and Luella F. (Isamoyer) Wagner. She was a graduate of Allen High School and Kutztown University. She received her Masters Degree in Administration-Elementary Education from Lehigh University and pursued further graduate work at both Lehigh and Temple Universities. Mary was an Allentown School District Educator for 40 years before retiring in 1983.

The Allentown School District has received conditional approval to install portable classrooms at its Jackson School. The school wants to erect four one-story classrooms at the elementary school, 513-531 N. 15th St., to help ease crowding in the center city school population. The city's Zoning Hearing Board approval, handed down Monday night, didn't come without objections from seven residents who live near the school. The residents complained that the area wouldn't be fenced in, leading to a safety hazard for children and a potential hangout for teen-agers.

By Thomas Hylton Special to The Morning Call - Freelance | December 11, 2005

Can creativity triumph over conventional thinking? Allentown's Jackson Elementary School is a test case. Although the school district's architects estimate it will cost $2.7 million less to renovate and expand Jackson than to build a new school on the same site, this historic building has been slated for demolition and replacement primarily because it has wooden joists supporting the floors and roof. School boards reason that wood elements shorten the life span of a building and make it a potential fire hazard.

Quality Telecommunications Inc. of Nazareth won zoning approval Tuesday night to open an office in the old Jackson School, 611 Nazareth Pike, in Lower Nazareth Township. Zoning approval was one of the conditions set when the township agreed to sell the bi-level brick building to company President John McEwen for $47,500 last year. McEwen needed a variance because the Jackson School is on agriculturally zoned property. McEwen plans to spend $150,000 to fix the deteriorating school, which was built in 1927 and sold to Lower Nazareth by the school district in the early 1980s.

Lower Nazareth Township has made a small profit from the sale of the vacant Jackson School, a bilevel brick building on Route 191. Supervisors last night accepted the $47,500 sealed bid submitted by Quality Telecommunications Inc., 113 S. Main St., Nazareth. The township bought the two-room schoolhouse from the Nazareth Area School District in 1983 for $25,000 for a police station, although those plans never materialized. Quality Telecommunications installs switching systems in telephones.

A person was shot and killed next to an Allentown elementary school Wednesday night, police said. The victim apparently died from a gunshot to the body in the 9:22 p.m. shooting by Jackson Elementary School, said David Howells Jr., assistant city police chief. The school is near N. 15th and W. Liberty streets. Early reports indicated the victim was a woman or teenage girl, but Howells said he couldn't confirm that information. Around 10 p.m., investigators were combing over a car parked beside the school in the 1400 block of Early Street, an east-west street just north of Liberty.

Eighth-grader Orquides Martines of Allentown's Trexler Middle School plays in the school's brass choir for residents of Gross Towers, Allentown. Also there Friday were 150 first- and second-graders from the Jackson School, Allentown, who were singing.

Lucy Romig Hilder, 73, of Roswell, Ga., formerly of Allentown, and Greensboro, N.C., died Feb. 13 in Roswell. She was the wife of David L. Hilder. She taught in the Allentown School District for eight years at the Muhlenberg School and the Jackson School. She was a graduate of Moravian College and received a master's in education from Lehigh University. Born in Allentown, she was a daughter of the late Ray H. and Jessie (Baum) Romig. Survivors: Husband; daughter, Maryellen Berger of Alpharetta, Ga.; son David of New York City; brother, Bruce R. of Fleetwood, and four grandchildren.

Kimberly Stasko's first-grade class at Jackson School in Allentown congas around the playground Monday. Monday was the 100th day of school for this class, and Mrs. Stako, as her class of 27 calls her, focused the day's curriculum around the number 100. Activities included giggling and bobbing their way through 100 jumping jacks and bringing 100

Allentown Mayor William Heydt recently awarded trophies to winners of the 1997 Fire and Burn Prevention Poster Contest sponsored by the Allentown Fire Department. The Allentown School District received a special award for participating in the contest. Principals Rita Marie Curran of St. Paul's School, Robert Bennett of Hiram Dodd School, and Bob Kohler of Jackson School also received trophies on behalf of their schools. Some 3,172 students in fourth and fifth grades from 17 elementary and middle schools in Allentown make posters for the contest.

After spending almost three decades in accounting, Bob Gensemer found his second calling in an Allentown elementary school. "If I had it to do over again, I'd minor in education," Gensemer says. Gensemer, who managed an accounts payable and payroll department for a Lehigh Valley corporation, was downsized six years ago when he was close to 52. While job hunting, he stopped in occasionally at the classrooms of his wife Dora, then an itinerant teacher in the Allentown School District's gifted program.